?Chapter 3065:


    Elissa squeezed her eyes shut, tears streaming down her face in hot, relentless trails.


    “I know… I know I’m sick. I know I’m different from everyone else. I understand all of that!”


    “Elissa, please!”


    Ernest recoiled for a split second before pulling her head into his chest, his fingers curling involuntarily as a sharp, searing painnced from his fingertips straight to his heart.


    “I was wrong! This is all my fault! I never should have said those things—I didn’t mean any of it!” he murmured in a shaking voice.


    Elissa’s face pressed deep into his chest, her breath warm against the fabric. Her sobs remained quiet, barely audible, yet they pierced him deeper than any heart-wrenching wails ever could.


    “I spokeplete nonsense!” Ernest seized her hand and pressed it firmly against his face. “Hit me! Strike me for talking such foolishness! Please, just let it out, all right?”


    She didn’t move, didn’t even flinch, so he gripped her hand tighter, lifted it himself, and brought it down hard against his own face.


    The sharp crack of the p jolted Elissa violently, freezing the tears in her eyes mid-fall.


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    She struggled against his iron grip, trying desperately to yank her hand free. “Stop it!”


    They stood exposed by the roadside, and people drifted past them at irregr intervals.


    Some cast curious, lingering nces their way, others watched with barely concealed amusement dancing in their eyes, and a few leaned close together to whisper behind raised hands.


    Ernest didn’t care about the stares—he’d learned years ago to block them out entirely—but Elissa remained painfully sensitive and fragile to such public scrutiny.


    “Elissa, we need to leave!” He wrapped his arm firmly around her trembling shoulders, practically lifting her off the ground as he steered her away from the gathering crowd.


    This wasn’t the ce for such an intimate, personal conversation—he needed to take her somewhere more private, somewhere she’d feel safe.


    They reached the garage momentster, climbed into the car without speaking, and drove straight to his ce through the winding streets.


    Elissa sat utterly motionless in the passenger seat, her head bowed low, eyes still red and brimming with unshed tears that clung to hershes.


    Gradually, her ragged breathing steadied, and she shifted her gaze toward the window beside her.


    Slowly, a flicker of recognition sparked in her mind.


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